Yoshida Talks Vita Third-Party Support: “We’re Having a More Difficult Time Than we had Anticipated”

August 8, 2012 Written by Alex Osborn

Like it or not, the Vita is failing to live up to Sony’s high expectations. Despite the handheld having a stellar launch lineup, sales for the Vita have failed to impress, and now with such a thin lineup of upcoming titles, the future doesn’t look particularly promising.

One of the main reasons for this has been the lack of third-party support for the platform, an issue that Sony Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida addresses in the September issue of PlayStation: The Official Magazine. While Yoshida notes that they’re “very happy with the hardware and platform [they] created”, the lack of support from outside developers has really hindered the success of the platform.

Because of the growth of the social/mobile sector, lots of opportunities are being presented to publishers to choose from, and because the social/mobile side is the growing sector in terms of the business now, they are very quickly shifting their development resources to be part of that growing market.

[We’re] having a more difficult time than [we] had anticipated in terms of getting support from third-party publishers, but that’s our job.

When asked by the outlet whether or not the SOCOM series is officially dead, he replied: “It’s not done. We never definitely retire any franchise. It’s sometimes great to have a fresh look at the classics that we have.” Yoshia also spoke to the possibility of acquiring Quantic Dream, saying that they first want to “develop a trusting relationship” before purchasing any studio.